A New and Living Way – Hebrews 10:19-21 Part 2

The Need for the Spirit and the Call to See Christ

And now, with your Bibles open to the book of Hebrews, please, Hebrews chapter 10, I'll pray before we begin. Our Father, we confess and acknowledge that if it is without the work of your Spirit, we would never be able to understand spiritual truth or how that truth should apply to our lives or what we are to do in response to that truth.

We need the work of your Spirit to accomplish this in our hearts, and we pray that you would do so this morning, that you would use your Word to comfort us and encourage us, to equip us, to sanctify us, that you would sanctify us by that truth, that you would strengthen our hearts together, and that you would help us to see Christ and His glory and the glory of what He has done in the pages of this book.

We pray that you would cause your Holy Spirit to open our eyes and our hearts so we may see and understand these things for the glory of Christ our Lord, in His name we pray, amen. We are here in Hebrews chapter 10, and last week was really one long introduction to today's sermon, and we got to the end of that time last week.

It was an overview of the larger context. We noted the beginning at verse 19, the author is now transitioning into a section of the epistle where he is going, it's going to be heavy on exhortation, and so last week we just kind of did an overview and set the table of what we're going to be looking at in the weeks ahead.

Well, let's be honest, in the years ahead as we finish up the book of Hebrews, as we begin to work through the exhortation section of this, we kind of needed to have an idea of where the author is going in this last section, and we saw that he is really the, I should say that the central exhortation of this last section of Hebrews is the exhortation to hold fast, to stand strong, to stay firm and to hold fast to our confidence and our hope that we have in Christ.

This is the goal of everything he has been writing. He is writing to these people to encourage them not to be shaken by persecution, not to be shaken by the hostility of the world, not to be shaken by their family and friends abandoning them, not to be shaken by tribulations and trials or even discipline from the Lord, but that they are to hold fast and to stand strong to the very end.

That would be the very evidence that their faith is genuine, and those whose faith is not genuine, those who make a mere profession of faith in Christ, who haven't had experienced no actual regeneration and no true born-again experience, those people will very quickly fall away in the face of temptations and trials and tribulation and the hostility of.

The world.

So, the central exhortation for the rest of the book of Hebrews is to stand fast, and we even see it here in our immediate context, which we are going to get to here in just.

A moment.

Two Responses to Christ’s Finished Work

So, that was kind of the overview of the whole last chunk of Hebrews, and then we focused in more closely on, specifically in chapter 10, and we saw that after the author finishes his theological argument at verse 18, he immediately demonstrates or gives to us two possible reactions to the truth.

This truth that Jesus Christ is our High Priest, that He has made a sacrifice for sin, that He has entered into heaven where He sits at the Father's right hand and makes intercession for us. Those glorious truths, there are two ways of responding to that.

The first is as a believer would respond in verses 19 through 25. Skip that for just a moment. The second is how an unbeliever would respond in verses 26 through 31. That unbeliever's response in verse 26 through 31 constitutes the fourth of the five warning passages in the book of Hebrews.

It is a warning against those who would step away from the truth and respond by walking away and considering as unholy or inadequate the blood of Christ, and thus would insult the spirit of grace. So, there's a very stern warning later on to those who might see the truth that He has presented in the epistle and then turn and walk away from that.

And the way that a believer would respond to that is given in verses 19 to 25, and here He is addressing them as brethren. You see that in verse 19, therefore brethren. He's addressing them as brethren.

These are people whom He knows are not only probably His ethnic kinship, they're Jews, but they're also brothers in Christ. And He is saying to them, since these things are true, verses 19 and 20 and 21, therefore we are to do the following things.

Verse 22, let us draw near. Verse 23, let us hold fast. And verse 24, let us encourage one another even more as we see the day drawing near. So there's those three let us statements, three exhortations.

Here's what you are to do. Since this is true, that Christ has given you access to the throne of God, and since it is true that we have a great high priest over the house of God, therefore we are to draw near to Him, we are to hold fast to Him, and we are to encourage others to do the same, to draw near and to hold fast.

Those are the three applications that He gives to believers. So that was our overview last week, and now we're just getting into verse 19 and 20, and actually we're going to get through the end of verse 21 today, looking at the things that He says are true.

These are really summary statements of what He has covered in chapter 6 through 10. Let's read it together, verse 19, therefore brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil that is His flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, and verse 22 is the application, let us hold fast.

Confidence to Enter the Holy Place by the Blood of Jesus

So I just want you to notice just those two since statements. Since it is true that we have confidence to enter the holy place, and since it is true, verse 21, that we have a great high priest over the house of God.

Those are two great advantages that we have that Old Testament saints did not have. And so we're going to spend our time today looking at these two advantages and really comparing them to what the Old Testament saints had and expected under the old covenant.

And you're going to see that what we have is far, far better. So He's drawing here upon some facts that He has already established back from chapter 6 through chapter 10, the middle of chapter 10. He's drawing upon those theological points that He has been making back then, and He's really summarizing it down to these two things.

You and I have two great advantages. We have direct and personal access to God, and we have a high priest who represents us.

In heaven.

These are two things that were inconceivable to an Old Testament saint, two things that Old Testament saints did not have. First, direct and personal access to God. Notice in verse 19, He says, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus.

Now that word confidence is a bit of an interesting word. Its definition here is, it's not exactly translated the way that we probably should take it here with the translation confidence, because that word confidence means a boldness or a courage.

It was used to describe a free-spokenness, a freedom of speech, or an openness, an unhinderedness of freedom or liberty. That's the idea behind it. Actually an access, and the idea is not necessarily to be understood subjectively as we might feel, I feel confident to do something, but objectively as something that is true of us, we have this confidence, we have this access, this freedom, this unhinderedness to come right into the throne of heaven.

So there is a subjective way of understanding this idea of confidence and an objective, and the author here intends us to understand this, not as what we feel subjectively to be true, but of what is objectively true regardless of how we feel, namely that something is true, we have access, we have this boldness to enter into the throne room of God.

So let me describe the difference between a subjective feeling and an objective fact. When I was a kid, pre-teen kid, I got a job mowing lawns, and I did this as soon as I could push a lawnmower, and I figured out that I could earn money pushing a lawnmower.

I was pushing a lawnmower for money somewhere in the county any day that there was a lawn.

Growing.

I was after it. So I got this job mowing a lawn for a man who lived about three quarters of a mile from.

Me.

He lived in Spokane actually, but he had a house on the beach, on the lake, about three quarters of a mile from where I grew up. And I went down and interviewed as it were, or auditioned, or whatever you want to call.

It.

I mowed his lawn, I said, what is this worth to you? And he said, it's worth X amount, and I said, I'll take it. And then I did this for a few weeks, and finally he said, look, you do this. I like having you come down here during the week, because he lived in Spokane, he would come up on the weekends.

So he would be there Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. He liked having his lawn mowed when he showed up to spend the week at the beach house. So he said, I like having you here during the week and right prior to the weekend.

The more you show up, the better, because I don't want the house just sitting there without any activity going around it, because otherwise it's just sitting there. And it was kind of out by itself before that area really got developed.

So he said, if you want to, come down and use the beach, you can, any time. You and your friends, you and your family, come down and just use my, and he had a nice dock, it was like an L-shaped dock, he had a boat, he had a floating dock with a slide, a curly slide that kind of went down, and it was beautiful.

And this was a huge upgrade for me as a kid, I mean a huge upgrade, because I grew up swimming in the slough, over here in Boyer Slough. And the water sewer treatment plant dumped its treated effluent about a quarter of a mile upstream of where I swam.

And I drank, swam that water all growing up. So the idea of having free access to come to a lake house any time that I wanted, and to swim in nice, pure, clean water was, that was a huge upgrade. And not only did I swim, let me just, for a second, not only did I swim in the slough, that was like my stomping grounds, I did everything in the slough.

It was seaweed, it was catfish, it was perch, it was tench, it was all the horrible stuff. And we used to actually go back, raft back into the place where the water actually flowed out of the treatment plant, into the water, and we would swim right in there.

So people say, are you worried about the virus at all?

No.

No, I'm not worried about the virus. What I was worried about is that one of my kids would be born with six toes or three.

Arms.

The virus didn't bother me at all. So this was a huge upgrade. And Mr. Brungie told me, any time you want, you can come down and use the beach, you, your friends, your cousins, your family, anybody, they just have to be with you.

You have to be the one down here. You don't want your friends coming down here. So I would go down by themselves. So I would go down there. I could bring anybody that I wanted down to the beach to go swimming.

We'd go down swimming. It was a three-quarter of a mile bike ride for us. So we'd go down there swimming almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day. And sometimes even when he was there, he'd be happy if we showed up and we would go swimming and enjoy the beach.

That's just not something that you do today, right? Now, objectively, objectively, I had access to go there any time that I wanted. Subjectively, I felt complete freedom to do so. And I did. Now, at first, I was a bit skittish, a bit skeptic.

I thought, should I really go down and take advantage of his dock and take advantage of his house and take advantage of the beach when Mr. Brungie's not there? Should I really go do that? So at first, I had a lot of hesitation.

That was how I felt. Objectively, Mr. Brungie was happy if I went down there. He wanted me there, using it as often as I wanted to. I had free access. Now, what was true of me is that I had complete access to use that beach any time I wanted.

There's also a parallel here, by the way, that my friends could only use it if I was.

There.

In the same way, we only have access to God's throne because Christ has gone ahead of us. We'll get to that later. So there's another parallel there. But I want you to see the difference between objective confidence and subjective confidence.

Objectively, I had confidence and free access to come any time that I want. Subjectively, I also felt the complete freedom to do that. Now, I've had other people who have said, anytime you need this or you want this, you just call, you ask, and you get to use it.

And sometimes that happens and we don't necessarily feel the freedom to use it, do we? Somebody might give us freedom to use something and we think, I don't know, I just don't really feel that I should do that.

I might be taking advantage of that person. Even though they might give me access to do that, we might not necessarily subjectively feel like we have the confidence and the freedom to go ahead and take advantage of that, do.

We?

That's the difference between subjective confidence and objective confidence in the way that this word is used. Objectively, something is true of us. We have personal and direct access to the throne of God.

Subjectively, how do we feel about that? Well, it's not always that we feel like we can just walk into heaven's throne room and make our petitions before the Lord. Isn't that true? Isn't it true that sometimes we just feel like, I'm not sure he wants to hear from me.

It's been a while or I'm not in a good place or this happened yesterday and I lost my temper or I sinned in such and such a way, maybe I should just stay away a while. Subjectively, our confidence might be minimized.

Objectively, our access is all the same. Objectively, our access never changes because it's a new and living way. So the author here is not describing the freedom that we have in how we feel about coming in, a feeling of freedom.

He is describing here objectively what is true regardless of how we feel about it, that you and I have full and free personal access, direct access to the throne room of heaven itself. That is objectively true regardless of whether we feel confident about it or not.

And it is objectively true because of what Christ has done. And we have freedom to enter the holy place, verse 19 says, since we have confidence to enter the holy place. Now he's using here Old Testament language and symbolism that goes back to the tabernacle.

Do you remember the tabernacle was the tent in the wilderness? The back was closed off but there was a veil at the front and as you walked inside the tabernacle on the right you would see the table of showbread and on the left the candlestick or the candlelight, the candelabra, I forget what it's called.

What's that? Menorah. No, that's not it. You should get somebody who preaches and knows a little bit more about what they're talking.

About.

And as you come toward the back there would be the altar of incense there and then there was the veil that separated the front chamber of the tabernacle from the Holy of Holies. Behind the veil was the Ark of the Covenant.

And that veil separated only by inches the Ark of the Covenant from the altar of incense. And the priest had to tend the altar of incense every day but only on one day of year only one man could enter behind that veil.

And he entered behind that veil not with anybody else or with anything else other than the incense that he was to bring from the altar outside the tabernacle and the blood of the sacrifice that he was to bring behind that.

And there he would sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant and then he would hurry out of there. He had access on one day, one man because of the blood of the sacrifice.

So when the author here says in verse 19, since we have confidence to enter the Holy Place, he is alluding to that inner chamber of the tabernacle, not the outer chamber where the furniture was, but the inner chamber where the Ark of the Covenant was where Yahweh Himself dwelt between or His glory was manifestly seen between the wings of the cherub over the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant.

That was the Holy Place. Now, the author is already in the book of Hebrews likened to the Holy Place to heaven because he has already drawn a connection. That Holy Place where God dwelt amongst His people that was accessible only by one person on one day of the year, that Holy Place is likened to heaven in Hebrews 9, verses 11 -12 when he says, When Christ appeared as a high priest to the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

And in Hebrews 9, verses 11 -12, the author is likening heaven to that inner sanctum of the tabernacle. That place behind the veil was a picture of heaven. God dwelt there. And that veil that separated men from the dwelling place of God was a reminder constantly every day of sin, that no man can approach God.

No man can step behind that veil. There's only one exception. He has to come by blood. And he has to come by blood himself having been offered a sacrifice for himself. He had to go once back to offer a sacrifice of the blood for the sins of him and his family, and then he would come back out, offer another sacrifice for the sins of the nation and go.

Back there.

And only on that one day of the year could he do that. And that veil constantly hanging there was a reminder of sin and the barrier that stands between us and God. No man can approach God. No man can see God.

No man can draw near to God because of our sin. So blood had to be offered to give us access to the holy of holies. So in verse 19, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus. But we don't enter just behind the veil.

But we enter into the reality itself, into heaven itself. We have access to the throne room of God. So we're not talking here in verse 19 about entering into the physical shadow of heaven, but into the real spiritual reality of heaven itself.

We have access to the throne of God. We have access to the greater thing, which is heaven itself, not just the symbol. And this type of language, by the way, remember, this would be unthinkable to a Jew.

There's one thing that no Jew ever expected to have happen in their life, and that was for the high priest to bring them into the tabernacle and say, go ahead, step behind the veil into the presence of God.

Or, even better yet, hey, I'm heading back there, do you want to come with me? No Jew would have ever presumed to do that because he would know that he'd be struck dead for doing it. So the whole idea of a sinner entering into the very presence of God himself, that was almost inconceivable to an Old Testament saint.

They couldn't imagine that. They could only approach God through a mediator, a high priest, and only then he would do it on their behalf once a year. That veil always separated them from God. It's unthinkable to a Jew because it really is unthinkable to a sinner.

Why should the God of all of heaven, the Holy and Righteous One, why should He give us access to come and stand before Him and to pray, or to praise, or to petition Him for anything? Why should the Holy One do that?

Is not our sin heavy enough and the weight of it serious enough to keep us barred from heaven forever? It certainly is, isn't it? All of my iniquity, my lying, my thieving, my blasphemy, my covetousness, my idolatry, my horrible thoughts, wicked in every way, all of my gossip and slander, every wicked and evil deed that I've done, every wicked and evil thought that I have ever thunk in my head in all of my life, all heaped together and added together and God knows it all.

It's all written down in a book. He misses none of it. He sees every thought that I think is hidden from everybody. He sees it and He knows it and He knows the motives of my heart and He knows everything I have ever done in broad daylight or in darkness.

He knows everything I've ever wanted to do but lacked the opportunity to do. Every wicked deed thought of, every wicked deed conceived and not executed, every wicked deed ever executed, He knows it all perfectly.

What sinner, understanding the weight of that sin, would ever presume to step into the presence of heaven itself and to petition the God of all of the universe, the God who knows His every wickedness and sin?

What sinner could ever do that? Do you feel the weight of that? You know why this is so unthinkable? There's only one way you can and that is if blood has been shed to pay the price for your sin, then a priest who has shed that blood can take that blood back and say, this is the payment for the sin and He can gain us access.

Under the old covenant, the holy of holy and the priest and the animal sacrifice, it was all a picture of what was to come. And that is that there would come a perfect priest, not of the line of Aaron but of the order of Melchizedek, a perfect priest who himself would offer a sacrifice but not an animal sacrifice, his own blood, his own body.

And then having offered that, he would step behind the veil into heaven itself. And if that's not amazing enough, he would then beckon us to come, to join him, to step behind the veil, enter into heaven itself, free, personal and direct access to the very throne of God, before the very God who weighs all of our sin and knows every last one of.

Them.

But because Christ has shed His blood and the sin has been atoned for, all of that sin is taken out of the way and the veil as it were is taken down, it is torn in two, it no longer is a barrier to us between heaven and us.

So verse 19 says, since we have confidence to enter that holy place and we do so by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way. This is an interesting phrase and I think that it is a lovely one. By a new and living way.

That word new, there are a lot of words that are translated new in the New Testament, right? We talk about being the new self, Ephesians chapter 4, to put on the new self, we talk about being a new creation in Jesus Christ, that's not this word new.

Talk about the new covenant, this author has actually used the word new previously to speak of the new covenant, but that's not the same word that's used here for new. This word that is translated new here in verse 19, a new and living way, sorry verse 20, a new and living way, this word for new is only used one time in all of the New Testament and it's right here.

And here's the interesting thing about that word. The word is a prefix with a root word and the root word means slain or slaughtered or killed and the prefix means freshly, recently or lately. So if you look it up in a concordance or a dictionary, the literal transliteration of the word would be freshly slain or recently slain, recently slaughtered.

Now eventually the idea of sacrifice got dropped from the meaning of the word and the word just simply came to be used as a synonym for new or recent or something that is fresh. But it's only used one time in the New Testament and that is to say the author could have used a lot of words that could be translated new, but he chose this one and why did he choose this one?

Because it's in the context of sacrifice and I think that the author, I'm relatively certain that the author has in mind the very thing that he's been talking about, the blood and the body of Christ and so this is the recently slaughtered living way.

You and I have access through the recently slaughtered living way, the new and living.

Way.

It is the living way because Christ Himself is living and of course this is a reference to His resurrection. You and I do not count upon an animal sacrifice to gain His entrance to God, but we count upon the one who was freshly slaughtered and He lives and He as our high priest has entered into heaven itself.

Our way that we trust, the way that takes us into heaven itself is the recently slaughtered and living one. That's a beautiful picture. He's the one that leads to life and by Him we have access, by His blood which He inaugurated for us, verse 20, through the veil that is His flesh, that's an interesting phrase, through the veil that is His flesh and there's a lot of ink that's been spilt on this because he's obviously referencing the veil again that stood between the outer chamber of the tabernacle and the Holy of Holies, that veil that separated by a matter of only inches the altar of incense from the Ark of the Covenant which was behind that.

It was only through that veil that the high priest again entered once a year and only on one day and here he makes reference to that veil but he says that is His flesh. Now here's the question, here's what makes this difficult to interpret.

In what sense is the flesh of Jesus Christ a veil? Notice it says in verse 20, we enter by the new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil that is His flesh. How is the flesh of Christ a veil?

And this is the perplexing part. The veil was the thing that separated us from God. So in what way does the author mean to say that the flesh of Jesus Christ in His incarnation separated us from God or kept us from God?

And some people have taken that and tried to make all kinds of illusions and connections. They say, well the flesh of Jesus then had to be ripped or torn in order just like the veil of the temple had to be torn from top to bottom to give us access to God.

And if the flesh of Jesus Christ had not been torn then still His flesh would be a barrier to us from entering into heaven itself. So the veil is a barrier. In what way is the flesh of Christ a barrier to us unless it is torn?

That's what causes perplexion. I have a brief answer to it. I'm not sure, I wouldn't die for this but I think that this is the best one. And here it is. The veil served not only as a barrier between men and God but that veil was also the way into the Holy of Holies, was it not?

It was a barrier but it also marked the way. You could close those doors back there. Those doors serve two functions. They are a barrier to keep people out or people in but they also mark the way into something.

In the same way, the veil in the tabernacle and later on in Solomon's temple, that veil was a barrier to keep everybody out and it symbolized the separation between us and God because of our sin. And that veil was torn in two when Jesus died on a cross.

That veil was torn from top to bottom and symbolizing the access that we now have. But it is not the barrier feature of the veil that is in mind, in the mind of the author. I think it is the fact that it marked the way.

So He is simply here using the veil as another reference to the way into the Holy of Holies because you had to go through the veil. So He has inaugurated for us by His blood. We enter by His blood. We enter by a new or freshly slaughtered and living way, which He inaugurated for us, and we enter through that veil that is the way into the Holy of Holies.

And that way into the Holy of Holies is through His flesh. His flesh had to be sacrificed. His blood had to be shed. And in that way, through that sacrifice, which was His body and His blood, that complete sacrifice itself marked the way and gains us access through, as it were, behind the veil, where Christ is now and where He has already gone.

So that, I think, is the solution to it. There is only one way into the Holy of Holies. And Christianity is an exclusive religion in this sense, an exclusive faith. There is no other way to God except through Jesus Christ.

And some people shy away from that. Some people are upset by that. Some people even try and apologize for God for that. They say, there is no other way to get to heaven except through Jesus Christ. You can't get there through Mohammed or Joseph Smith or any mediums or spiritists or any other path.

Not through your good deeds, not through any other way can you have access into the throne room of God and into eternal life. It is through Christ and Christ alone. And some people, some Christians say that and then feel like they have to apologize.

For God.

I know I don't really personally like that, but that's just what Scripture says. So I just got to tell you what it says. I think we should embrace that and double down on it and proclaim it as a glorious thing.

There is a way.

Right?

We ought to be thankful that there is at least one and it is through the body and the blood of Jesus Christ. And it is an exclusive way because only one person has done what is necessary to gain us access to the throne room of God.

Only one person has done the deed. So if you have a disease and there is only one cure and you go into a doctor and he says, you have this disease because you swam in a slough when you were a kid, so therefore you have this and there is one cure for this.

It is this medication. Would you like a fool say, well, one medication? How narrow minded and bigoted and exclusive is that one medication? I want to be able to take multiple medications. I want to be able to offer to everybody all kinds of medications to solve their dilemma.

That's not how it works. If there is one cure, there is one cure for the disease. Our disease is sin. Our problem is separation from God. Only one person has done what is necessary to solve our problem and to cure our disease by raising us from the dead and that is Jesus Christ.

So yes, there is only one way and I say it gladly, happily, because that's what scripture teaches and the good news is that there is a way. There is a way to have my sins forgiven. There is a way to be made righteous.

There is a way to have eternal life and to enter into heaven itself, but it is only through the Lord Jesus Christ, by his blood, by the freshly slaughtered and living way, through the veil that is his flesh, that is the access that we have into the throne room of God himself.

So this describes the access that we have, a free and unfettered, continual, freely spoken access. We come right into heaven itself. Our entrance is secured for us because of what Christ has done right into the Holy of.

Holies.

If we were speaking in the language of the Old Testament text, we would be able to step behind the veil and behold with our own faces the Shekinah glory of Yahweh himself, positioned between the wings of the cherub, over the Ark of the Covenant, over the mercy seat.